Sir Charles Spencer " Charlie " Chaplin, KBE ( 16 April 188925 December 1977 ) was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era.

Chaplin was one of the most creative and influential personalities of the silent-film era.

Chaplin was identified with left-wing politics during the McCarthy era and he was ultimately forced to resettle in Europe from 1952.

In 2008, Martin Sieff, in a review of the book Chaplin: A Life, wrote: " Chaplin was not just ' big ', he was gigantic.

Charles Spencer Chaplin was born on 16 April 1889 to Hannah Chaplin ( née Hill, 1865 – 1928 ) and Charles Chaplin Sr. ( 1863 – 1901 ).

There is no official record of his birth, although Chaplin believed he was born at East Street, Walworth, in South London.

Because of this poverty, Chaplin was sent to a workhouse at seven years old.

In September 1898, Hannah Chaplin was committed to Cane Hill mental asylum — she had developed a psychosis seemingly brought on by malnutrition and an infection of syphilis.

" For the two months she was there, Chaplin and his brother were sent to live with their father, whom the young boy scarcely knew.

Charles Chaplin Sr. was by then a severe alcoholic, and life with the man was bad enough to provoke a visit from the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.

" There was nothing we could do but accept poor mother's fate ", Chaplin later wrote, and she remained in care until her death in 1928.

Hannah had been booed off stage, and the manager chose Chaplin, who was standing in the wings, to go on as her replacement.

It was an isolated performance, but at nine years old Chaplin became interested in the theatre.

Chaplin worked hard and the act was popular with audiences, but dancing did not satisfy the child and he dreamt of forming a comedy act.

The manager sensed potential in Chaplin and he was soon on the stage.

" It was like tidings from heaven ", Chaplin recalled.

Chaplin quickly began work in another role, touring with his brother — who was also pursuing an acting career — in a comedy sketch called Repairs.

It was popular with audiences and Chaplin became the star of the show.

The studio's early productions were low-budget short subjects: " Screen Snapshots ", the " Hall Room Boys " ( the vaudeville duo of Edward Flanagan and Neely Edwards ), and the Chaplin imitator Billy West.

Ironically, this led to the foundation of United Artists by Douglas Fairbanks, D. W. Griffith, Pickford, and Chaplin, and to the loss of First National's biggest stars.

In the silent era, with English actor Charlie Chaplin its biggest star, audiences were receptive to films from all nations.

Two of the biggest actors in the silent era were Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel.

In the 1920s and ' 30s Abbe photographed politicians, stage and film stars -- Hitler and Mussolini, Charlie Chaplin and Josephine Baker -- and scored the biggest coup of his career when he finagled his way into the Kremlin and, according to Miss Tilly, " tricked " Stalin into posing for him.

Making his debut in 1911, Kennedy appeared in about 500 films, working with some of the biggest film comedians in the United States, including Roscoe Arbuckle, Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, the Marx Brothers, Charley Chase, and the Our Gang series.

The Essanay Film Manufacturing Company sent Chaplin an offer of $ 1, 250 a week with a signing bonus of $ 10, 000.

Chaplin made 14 films for Essanay, the last of which was a parody of Carmen named Burlesque on Carmen ( 1916 ).

As his Essanay contract came to an end, and fully aware of his popularity, Chaplin requested a $ 150, 000 signing bonus from his next studio.

In late 1914 Essanay succeeded in hiring Charlie Chaplin away from Mack Sennett's Keystone Studios, offering Chaplin a higher salary and his own production unit.

Chaplin made 14 short comedies for Essanay in 1915, at both the Chicago and Niles studios, plus a cameo appearance in one of the Broncho Billy westerns.

Chaplin's stock company at Essanay included Ben Turpin, who disliked working with the meticulous Chaplin and only appeared with him in a couple of films ; ingenue Edna Purviance, who became his off-screen sweetheart as well ; Leo White, almost always playing a fussy continental villain ; and all-purpose authority figures Bud Jamison and John Rand.

Finally, with Chaplin off the Essanay scene for good, Essanay signed French comedian Max Linder, whose clever pantomime was often compared to Chaplin's.

Today the Essanay lot is the home of St. Augustine's College, and its main meeting hall has been named the Charlie Chaplin Auditorium.

In 1915 Edna Purviance was working as a secretary in San Francisco, when Chaplin was working on his second film with Essanay Studios, working out of Niles, California, one hour southeast of San Francisco.

Chaplin and Purviance were romantically involved during the making of his Essanay, Mutual, and First National films of 1915 – 1917.

In 1912, she had her first taste of the movie industry by selling a script for $ 25 to the Essanay Company, once the home of Charlie Chaplin.

Earlier that year Charlie Chaplin, then the most popular comedian in the world, had left Essanay for more money and independence at Mutual Film and Spoor wanted to replace Chaplin with Max Linder.

At the canyon's western mouth, Essanay Film Company had a studio located in Niles from 1912 – 1916, where Charlie Chaplin made The Tramp and a few other films in early 1915.

This film was not an official Chaplin film, even though it has many Chaplin directed scenes ; it was edited together out of outtakes and newly shot footage by the Essanay Film Manufacturing Company, with Leo White as director for the new scenes.

Since Chaplin did not have legal control over the films made during his time with Essanay, he could not prevent its release.

Chaplin filed to sue on May 6, but to no avail — on July 8, the court determined that Essanay had the right to reinvent the client work Chaplin had done for them in any way that they saw fit.

Essanay created Triple Trouble, their last " new " Chaplin comedy, by taking at least one — and perhaps two — sequences that had been intended for the unfinished Life, bridging them with outtakes from Police, and through borrowing the ending from Work ( 1915 film ).

Work is a 1915 silent film starring Charlie Chaplin ( his eighth film for Essanay Films ), and co-starring Edna Purviance, Marta Golden and Charles Insley.